Jognny represents that quality of innocence that the Greasers have lost. By protecting Johnny, the Greasers are able to cling on and defend that innocence that they have forsaken. When Johnny dies, the Greasers must come to terms with the fact that their innocence is gone. Dally, though percieved as the toughest and meanest of them all actually needs Johnny the most. He chose to be gunned down by the police because he was too cowardly to commit suicide. Only Pony knew that the gun has no bullets. The others would have thought that Darry had no other choice but to defend himself using the weapon. It was totally an excuse to die.

On page 160 after Johnny dies when Ponyboy gets home he tells everyone, "Dallas is gone,", I said. "He ran out like the devil was after him. He's gonna blow up. He couldn't take it." Then later on page 162 in my edition of "The Outsiders," Ponyboy thought, "They (the police) don't know you're only bluffing. And even as the policemen's guns spit fire into the night I knew that was what Dally wanted." Dally depended so much on his friendship with Johnny and he felt so guilty about what happened to Johnny that he no longer felt he had anything to live for. He decided to commit assisted suicide.

Dally wanted to die because Johnny waz d thing he loved the most in his life and now that Johnny was dead he felt as if there was no point for living and he might as well die and not suffer from the great tragedy that ruined completely his whole life so he decided to make the police kill him by shooting him .Don't mind if i make some grammar mistakes (i am really smart it is that i am justed used to this and i am not in high school to be dat experienced so i hope my answer works .some people call me a bookworm but i ain't a nerd !)